Norwalk Dems praise education funding, take swipe at GOP

Senate Majority Bob Duff led a press conference on Monday, May 6, 2019 to tout the education spending in the Democratic legislature's proposed budget.

Senate Majority Bob Duff led a press conference on Monday, May 6, 2019 to tout the education spending in the Democratic legislature's proposed budget.

Photo: Kelly Kultys / Hearst Connecticut Media

Photo: Kelly Kultys / Hearst Connecticut Media

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Senate Majority Bob Duff led a press conference on Monday, May 6, 2019 to tout the education spending in the Democratic legislature's proposed budget.

Senate Majority Bob Duff led a press conference on Monday, May 6, 2019 to tout the education spending in the Democratic legislature's proposed budget.

Photo: Kelly Kultys / Hearst Connecticut Media

Norwalk Dems praise education funding, take swipe at GOP

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NORWALK — State Democratic lawmakers on Monday touted their proposed state budget as win for education, and also for Norwalk.

“We’re here today to talk about the budget that came out of the appropriations committee that actually increases funding for Norwalk public schools to the tune of $500,000 for next fiscal and a $1 million for the fiscal year after that,” Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff, D-Norwalk, said at a press conference outside City Hall.

This fiscal year, the city received just under $11.44 million in state funding, which will go up to $11.98 million for fiscal year 2020 and then $12.5 for fiscal year 2021.

Duff, Representatives Lucy Dathan, Chris Perone and Travis Simms, all D-Norwalk, gathered with Norwalk Federation of Teachers President Mary Yordon to share how the funding could impact the city’s schools.

“We have a tough job,” Yordon said. “Norwalk educational professionals have a tough job to do. We can’t do it just us and kids in classrooms, we have to form teams not only within our buildings but also throughout the city and up in Hartford.”

Duff said that the Republicans have put out a budget with “zero dollars” for education.

“The appropriations committee has gone back and put out a very detailed budget and Republican’s budget has put this out, which is nothing,” Duff said, pointing to a white sheet of paper. “They're not funding education, they're not funding our community colleges, they're not funding the things that are very important to us here in this area.”

Local state representatives Gail Lavielle, R-Wilton, and Terrie Wood, R-Darien, released a joint statement after the press conference stating that Duff and the Democratic state representatives “ignored the facts.”

“Senator Duff willingly chose to ignore the facts when he accused Republicans of providing $0 for Norwalk schools during his press conference this morning,” the statement read. “He knew full well that the dollar figure they trumpeted is a product of the bipartisan budget of 2017 supported by House and Senate Republicans.”

Perone, who sits on the appropriations committee said that the budget showed the legislators believe investing in the future of students.

“As a member of the appropriations committee, I not only have the sleep deprivation to prove it, we live and breathe every dime we try to bring back for Norwalk,” he said. “It’s more than just overall funding.”

Perone highlighted that the budget includes additional spending in areas like manufacturing pipeline initiative, the healthcare apprenticeship initiative, the state’s youth employment program and additional funding for community colleges.

He and Duff said that these areas that will help prepare students for the real world.

“We cannot afford to have 40 to 50 percent of our kids in our urban areas who do not have the skills necessary to have those jobs of the 21st century,” Duff said.

Duff said that he was happy to see the committee continue the implementation of the 10-year education funding formula overhaul that began in 2017. The formula changed how funding is broken up by district, through weighting students in poverty and English language learners. Duff said that these changes helped better account for the needs of these students.

“That formula from two years finally helped to assist Norwalk children dealing with the needs that we have here in this community, whether it was poverty or for English language learners,” Duff said. “For the first time, we finally accounted for that amongst other major changes that took part in having a new formula that will be phased in over a 10-year period.”

Yordon said she and school officials appreciated the attention to education and the needs of the students.

“We appreciate every dollar that’s brought to the Norwalk public schools and will commit to use it really carefully,” she said. “I think the only thing that’s worse than paying taxes is dealing with an uneducated population 20 years from now.”

Lavielle and Wood also said that the Democrats didn’t address the fact that to fund their initiatives would require increased taxes.

“Here’s another fact Senator Duff chose to ignore today - his party’s funding for Norwalk comes with a big price tag — $2 billion in tax increases,” the statement read, “Between the tolls, new tax proposals and anti-business policies they’ve presented us with during the 2019 session, it’s evident that the senator and his colleagues have little interest governing in a bipartisan manner, and have chosen a more underhanded approach. The Democrats’ plan for education funding has not changed since two years ago and neither has their tendency to over tax every hardworking individual in the State of Connecticut.”

Duff said he was confident they would be able to negotiate with Gov. Ned Lamont and get a budget in place by the June 5 deadline.

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